


Souls Intertwined

by Kisuru



Series: Not AO3 Exchanges [6]
Category: X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-12-07 10:11:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18233489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuru/pseuds/Kisuru
Summary: While Subaru is a diligent Sakurazukamori, he swears someone watches him out of the corner of his eye. The shock he isn't alone in his own body is a wake up call he never expects.Written for Circle Walker (@CircleWalkerHK) for the SeiSub Hanami Exchange.





	Souls Intertwined

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt worked from: Seishirou lives in Subaru's body forever.

Fog on the mirror showed his breath. He leaned in close above the sink, scrubbing the blood on his hands with soap and the stack of paper towels on the counter.  
  
Each time Subaru killed the blood caked his skin and clung to him like a second skin. As though it had always been there, he could never peel it off, unyielding to his pleas to do so. Even when it was slowly dripping into the sink basin the blood almost had a mind of its own.  
  
That wasn’t an incorrect assessment.  
  
Images of Rainbow Bridge soared back to Subaru’s mind. While he had wanted to die, he preferred Seishirou’s blood oozing down his forearm and soaking his sleeves instead—this blood felt infinitely filthier.  
  
Subaru gritted his teeth.  
  
It should have been the other way around for them. He should reject the thought of Seishirou’s blood, but he couldn’t help it; the notion of it lured him. Desperately, he wished he had been able to travel back in time only minutes before the droplets drenched his soul that day; his blood had tainted his skin and mocked him for the fact he couldn’t perform the impossible. Above all, he would have saved him.  
  
The leftover blood was cold.  
  
Subaru laced the towel in between his fingers and dug into the open spaces.  
  
_Not until it’s gone_ , he chanted.  
  
It would dry on his clothes and stain. It always did. But the blood itched, stuck—he couldn’t leave it on bare skin, because his body scorched under the assault of the blood’s heat. To have anyone else’s blood there too long besides _his_ blood was a sin Subaru never could stand.  
  
Subaru gazed at himself through the haze of fog blocking the mirror, eyes dim.  
  
He should put the perspectives into focus.  
  
Any method would be efficient besides the Sakurazuka trademark killing practice. It was a halfhearted gesture to continue it. He wouldn’t be sprayed in blood each time another job was put to rest. The back and forth rollercoaster of it would be eased, the hollow shame and fulfillment put to bay at the lack of reminder.  
  
But, despite his mild inner reservations, Subaru only shook his head in protest.  
  
It was a fruitless effort. He would never abandon the one thing that brought him closer to the person _he_ had been.  
  
The blood still tingled on his hands. No matter the number of times he washed his hands, or he scrubbed his arms until the skin was red and pruned under the rinse of water and soap, the phantom warmth tingled and refused to leave.  
  
He needed to take drastic measures.  
  
Subaru froze. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The presence of someone in the washroom captured his attention, and he went on full alert.  
  
The cover of illusion blocked intruding eyes from a view of his form, but—  
  
Subaru whipped around to face them. To the opposite of contradiction, he wasn’t worried about being caught in the middle of removing his kill’s blood—but he knew, if someone saw him or noticed any traces of blood, a piece of his sins were exposed to them. That he wasn’t good enough at this to toss aside his own inhibitions.  
  
Seishirou’s legacy was put at a disservice.  
  
Only the open path to the washroom door was visible from his vantage point. An government official had not wandered in unannounced. Subaru sensed no one.  
  
He was well aware that wasn’t true.  
  


* * *

  
Someone was watching him. Subaru could never predict when it would happen or why they bothered, but he always had a déjà vu type of sensation afterwards.  
  
There was no particular moment in time Subaru found himself being watched. To his dismay, it always occurred while he was alone most of time (in his apartment, on the street in the dark, or when he was in an empty store aisle). Still, Subaru was unable to pinpoint where it came from.  
  
He was the predator. He should hand out threats and obstacles for their plight.  
  
But there was nothing to lash out at.  
  
If they were scrying his location, or casting a curse on him in a way that he wouldn’t be able to reflect, he would still know—but there was no confrontation for him to act on those tumbling queries.  
  
With worries came irritation.  
  
For the entire day his hand itched. For days he hadn’t paid the upmost attention to it (“Take care of yourself when you’re sick, Subaru!” Hokuto scolded him in his heart), but the progression of a red rash increased. The back of his hand reddened with indentations of his nails scratching across the soft peaks of his skin.  
  
Once again, Subaru carelessly applied pressure, dug into the abrasive rash which refused to leave him alone. It rooted within the confines of his skin, almost a physical reenactment of the chaos that always ebbed within him.  
  
But he thought one thing; it was another blame eating him from the inside out.  
  
The mark was long gone. That hand was the place the Sakurazukamori’s inverted pentagram had resided. With Subaru’s precious memory of him gone to the wind, there was no point in lavishing the bare spot with extra affection anymore.  
  
For now, he pulled his hand away.  
  
The boarded up businesses for the night and short buildings with dim lights inside surrounded him. He was on a narrow path off the main street where he could be alone. He preferred it that way.  
  
Once upon a time he had walked on this street searching for him to no avail. He had gotten a tail end whiff of his illusion, and he had tried to chase after him at top speed, seek out a trace of him. Even now, the clatter of the asphalt pounded in his ears. The bitter meanderings of hope and grief swelled up within him once more.  
  
Subaru’s nails grinded into his palm.  
  
If he had only been able to catch him, then he wouldn’t have to live like this.  
  
He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t, every day—  
  
He cupped the back of his hand where the pentagram had been. And without warning, he swore he touched fire.  
  
A blinding light captured his gaze.  
  
A savage searing of pain shot through his arm and skipped along his neurons until it reached the shock point at the base of his brain. Subaru grasped at his hand in a flash. It pulsed nonstop in a frenzied, unbearable rapture of white noise.  
  
He recognized the flare of agony.  
  
But it couldn’t be the truth… Never…  
  
When he removed his hand, he held his breath. He sighed, shaky, disorientated.  
  
Usually, this was the point he returned the favor, but he was shell-shocked.  
  
_No_ , Subaru realized. _This is…_  
  
He choked on the huge lump in his throat. He didn’t want to look down. Should he confirm whether it was a cruel lie or his imagination playing games on him? But the turmoil of fear of prayer turned in his stomach. Subaru couldn’t stop himself.  
  
Branded on his flesh, it flared to life.  
  
The pentagram crisscrossed the expanse of his skin, the delicate etching marks flowing in small spider webs of light.  
  
Subaru’s chest heaved, heart smashing against his ribcage. His eyes widened. His head spun and his knees wobbled.  
  
“How…”  
  
Subaru’s throat clenched, parched.  
  
“Is it…?”  
  
He wasn’t able to think, or believe, any probable explanations for this illusion.  
  
Yes, it must be an illusion. It absolutely had to be. He couldn’t deny it was real.  
  
Yet denied it was conjured by anyone but himself. Subaru was the one in control.  
  
“Did I mark… myself?”  
  
The pentagram wouldn’t follow the order to mark the Sakurazukamori. Would it?  
  
He stood, listless. And then, wildly, he glanced side to side. He searched for a scrap of his magical signature to tell him apart from the hundreds of people milling about on Tokyo’s streets late at night.  
  
Seishirou couldn’t conceivably be there. He disappeared in Tokyo Bay that night, and the only thing that remained was the amber eye Subaru saw through now—and Seishirou’s eye was free of charge.  
  
Yet he was there. The oncoming force and thrill of magic down to Subaru’s core was _his_. He would never forget that.  
  
Where was he!?  
  
The more he extended his senses to the world around himself, a manifestation of Seishirou’s power taunted him far away. But Subaru had the sixth sense that _told_ him he wasn’t that far away from him.  
  
Was that where the trail went cold?  
  
The neon lights on the billboard before him diverted his attention. He winced, his feet floating underneath him. He caught himself before he tripped over a crack in the cement, but he didn’t see the shadow that passed him. He bumped into them, hard, sending the person backwards.  
  
He blinked. _The mark, the mark is back_ , Subaru instead droned into his skull. _Seishirou-san, why do you play with me like this? I’m not letting you this time!_  
  
“Watch where you’re going,” the woman snapped, glancing over her shoulder.  
  
He might hyperventilate. His hand went to bunch up his shirt. Why was he alive? Had Fuuma lied to him about his body?  
  
“Are you listening?” Her tone sharpened.  
  
“I’m…” Subaru trailed off, speaking out of pure habit rather than his past propriety.  
  
Every single apology he had ever uttered—the urge to bow in front of the people he wronged, plead for forgiveness for his faults—died on his lips and buzzed in his brain like overcooked promises.  
  
The pieces of the puzzle rolled and rattled in his brain like bowling bowls scraping against faraway pins. He should ask her why he was suddenly seeing the unique emblem of his long buried love out of nowhere, but she was useless to him.  
  
The mark burned deliciously. He relished and overjoyed in it. All else was damned.  
  
Subaru cradled his hand with the upmost tenderness. He turned from her without replying and disappeared in his illusion.  
  


* * *

  
Seishirou levitated above a sea of darkness.  
  
In fact, that was a well and precedential outcome. He was dead and shouldn’t be in the realm of the living to feel anymore; he should be submerged in a world of nothingness for eternity. If that was how death worked. He had always pictured a peaceful place without the corruption that plagued his views of Japan’s people.  
  
Truly, though, the afterlife should have someone else for him to talk to.  
  
He blew that chance before he had died. Perhaps it was retribution for misdeeds.  
  
But the _real_ reason Seishirou knew without a doubt he wasn’t officially dead in the terms of a soul moving on was for the event which did not happen then. Hokuto was not there to tap her foot and glare at him, peeved at his failures. After all, she had threatened to stomp over to him if he dared visit without Subaru.  
  
Well, he hadn’t been looking forward to her lecture for breaking her spell anyway. To keep himself from thinking of Hokuto, he processed his surroundings. Gradually, time passed. Sparks and dots encroached on his vision, and he wasn’t able to see much. (Why wasn’t anything there?).  
  
_Seishirou-san_ …  
  
The intonation boomed in his ears. Every so often Seishirou heard the word echo throughout the floating chamber he was in. The pitch dripped with gruffness he had never uttered in his presence. He didn’t understand the implication of it, honestly—but the voice’s owner was identifiable without misconception.  
  
_Why did you leave?  
  
Did I make you commit suicide?  
  
Why did you leave me? Couldn’t we have been happy? Why couldn’t you end my suffering end for us to be together?  
_  
It was not a simple dream, or Subaru channeling him from the living world.  
  
The thoughts weren’t simply those. As people, Seishirou had realized that there was wealth of possibilities and ideas that came to them while he observed the streets of Tokyo, but Subaru’s involuntary lamentations about life were centralized and self-absorbed most of the time.  
  
The content of those thoughts surprised him the most—Subaru thought about what could have been if things had gone differently, or he went through the daily motions of his jobs. It fascinated him even though it was mildly amusing. Not so long ago, he had selflessly bent over backwards for others’ happiness and severely neglected his own sacrifices.  
  
He noticed many things in a loop; he saw the pattern of his day and repetitions. But he dreamed often, and Seishirou caught glimpses of Subaru approaching him, or talking to him and touching him, and he looked away out of discomfort. He stood off to the side in his dreams and watched him spend time with his doppelganger.  
  
There was always a smiling or uninjured version of himself in his dreams. Subaru didn’t let go of him until he woke up.  
  
He listened often to the conversations, but he let them go on as normal and didn’t interfere, not sure if he wanted to hear everything said and react to it. But the temptation was strong. Still, he was sated enough knowing that Subaru was so infatuated with him. The dreams gave him that fresh, eye-opening light.  
  
In one dream, Subaru leaned in towards Seishirou and repeated the same words he had told him directly into his ear.  
  
Seishirou frowned. Was he parroting his own words? If so, why was he?  
  
Why would Subaru lie to himself without a trace of the truth? He didn’t love him. He hated him. Seishirou was catapulted into unknown, baffling territory.  
  
Being trapped within the mind wasn’t the same as a mobile body. He couldn’t communicate when he wanted to anyway, and he almost broke the line of his solitude when he gained more leverage into prying Subaru’s racing thoughts. Yet he didn’t want him to know he was there.  
  
The more he watched him and the lonelier he realized he was… He was glad he was there to watch that all unfold.  
  
Sight into the outside world came later. He glimpsed the eclipse of the scenery around them. In a way, the world was grayer than it had been while he had one eye for a handful of years (and that was saying something, considering he had relied and put more work on it as time passed). When Subaru looked at bed, the sky, or a person’s face through the eye which had been Seishirou’s in the first place, his gaze flickered away quickly.  
  
For years he had wanted to be an overseer and watch the Sumeragi’s progress. But if he could, he wanted to add more brightness to his reality.  
  
Subaru was still irrevocably _his_.  
  
In the void, he moved. He waved his arm and kicked the air around him. Eventually, Seishirou found the spot he searched for. He placed his hand where Subaru’s soul was located in his hand. He mumbled and spell for the pentagram and wove the seeds of it back where it belonged, springing its ferocity back to life.  
  
He was elated with Subaru’s reaction and the immense panic that ensued that.  
  
The tug and pull on the pentagram brought them even closer, then, and his insistence to constantly touch it was maddening delight for Seishirou.  
  
He practically caressed his soul. He stared at the mark’s light like a moth to flame. Subaru’s lingering, half-lidded eyes conveyed he only had eyes for it. He caught glimpses of the world he had deemed the “gray world” shift in and out of focus into warm sunset colors. Even in the dimly lit apartment, Subaru sat and traced the edges, bewitched with it.  
  
Then, the weight of the world wasn’t crashing down around on him. It was like a tide of change; he had something to live for. The overlapping bits of emotion intertwined with Seishirou’s said so.  
  
He should know the difference between his emotions and another soul’s. But perhaps they started to blend as one, and Seishirou finally understood him, despite the confusion he _shouldn’t_ love him. But he went with the flow of their desires meeting as one unit, mingling, outright becoming something Seishirou hadn’t once thought he could ever relate to.  
  


* * *

  
The brisk nature in which Subaru did everything was an understatement.  
  
He wasn’t into his work. In fact, he only put every ounce of himself into his work when he received a late night fax instead of the routine for every day exorcisms; he hurried out to meet the call.  
  
_That’s not like you,_ Seishirou thought.  
  
He hadn’t meant to keep the mark permanent—Seishirou had wanted him to be free of the mark upon his death, but he had wanted to give him a kick-start—and he increasingly felt no obligation to remove it. He functioned ten times more productively when he was aware of it.  
  
So, he brushed the mark. He clenched his hand in unspoken reply, determined. He cast the final spell to send the wandering girl’s soul to the afterlife peacefully.  
  
Now they were on the street. Seishirou expected they would finally go home.  
  
Instead, Subaru stopped walking. The wheels in Subaru’s brain twisted, roared, squeaked as they came to a standstill.  
  
Subaru fell to his knees. He cupped his face with his hands, and the window of his vision clouded with film. The tears started to fall and blur everything.  
  
Sadness was a strange phenomenon. Subaru’s heart and mind seized up and crushed the fragments of mediation he used to compose himself in a pinch. The onslaught of oncoming depression was lucid and unbearably blistering; the breath that had been so plentiful moments prior tightened the world Seishirou inhabited, suffocating and isolating them both, a chill evident.  
  
He didn’t ask why he started crying, and Seishirou shot caution in the foot.  
  
“You’re not insane,” he said.  
  
His words may as well have been a truck knocking him from behind, because Subaru jolted. Watery tears fell, but his hands uncovered his eyes, his thumb still brushing his right eye on reflex.  
  
“That’s rich.”  
  
“Believe me,” Seishirou answered.  
  
Subaru laughed, ragged and frustrated.  
  
Subaru shook his head, chewing his lip. “You don’t know true insanity, do you? Don’t tell me you care. You didn’t care. Not after what you did. All you had to do was kill me. And you left me here.”  
  
On the contrary, he knew. Hearing the words were tangible proof while Subaru was vulnerable of his emotions, which was still unforgivable to him. Seishirou didn’t know how to respond, because he most certainly was _not_ concerned.  
_  
_ “And this is perfectly logical of sanity,” Subaru continued, leaning his head back until his neck hurt. “You’re talking to me in my head. I think you’re here with me but you can’t be here. You’re dead!”  
  
Something clicked in his mind and there was a flash of understanding, a filmroll of memories that Seishirou watched unravel. Images of the bet year and the Promised Year. That was right, Subaru realized—he never shook the suspicion the signs were related to him. The fact he heard Seishirou sometimes mumbling or countering his random decisions. And there was the feeling something was complete but was also incomplete…  
  
To Subaru, the dread was insurmountable. So much time had been… wasted. He touched the pentagram again; it glowed under his fingertips. The lines were hot, tickled against the fibers of his nerves.  
  
“Sei… Seishirou-san?”  
  
Seishirou remained silent. He didn’t have to elaborate, because Subaru had the final piece in this game as it was.  
  
“You are…” A few more tears joined the others, but they weren’t sad this time. “Talk to me. Why won’t you talk to me?”  
  
Subaru felt him close to his own soul and the weight. And there was no shred of a doubt Subaru had been a fool not to dig further. He wished he could make himself one with the irresistible, magnetic force of his soul practically within his reach.  
  


* * *

  
If Seishirou wouldn’t confess he was with him, then Subaru would drag him out.  
  
Yes, he had an idea of what to do while luring him out for the greatest results, and if Seishirou was paying attention, he would either torture him or make him enjoy what Subaru wanted him to.  
  
Subaru perched on the edge of his couch (or what used to be Seishirou’s couch). He arched his back, his head against the armrest. He glanced at the ceiling, taking rapid breaths, feeling his blood pulse.  
  
Seishirou was there.  
  
He couldn’t leave…  
  
Subaru reached down to his zipper. He tapped the cool metal, thoughts drifting. In his newest fantasy, Seishirou knelt next to him on the floor, He looked at him with that smoky, territorial expression that he had always loved so much. The one good eye glinted, as though he would never let him escape from his grasp.  
  
His hand worked the zipper down. And, slowly, he pulled himself out from the squeezing constraint of the fabric. In doing so, he realized just how turned on he was, his length hard and straining.  
  
With the excitement coursing throughout his body and heating him up, Seishirou cursed he wasn’t able to stop himself from prying. Well, he didn’t seriously have reservations about doing so, but he was playing the heaviest card on purpose. Seishirou hated being baited and then falling prey to it. He willingly let himself, because he wouldn’t miss a good show.  
  
Subaru’s eyes closed. His palm landed on the solid, hot flesh that begged to be attended to. The blood rushed in his veins and engorged his length shamelessly. He cupped himself, gasping, settling in.  
  
Seishirou wasn’t sure if it was Subaru’s own reaction, or a combination of both of them, but he looked in without remorse. The arousal surging within his body didn’t discriminate and leave him out of it, and his soul tingled with similar hunger.  
  
Subaru’s hand stroked up and down in a constant and steady rhythm, and he, too impatient to wait for a reaction, provoked him faster. He pulled himself out as far as he could go. His hand wrapped around the shaft to warm himself up, and his fingers flicked at the pre-come beginning to leak from the slit. Idly, he smoothed it down his skin. Groaning, he spread his legs out farther apart to inflict far more friction, arms shrugged to the sides.

The true pity was that he couldn’t feel Seishirou touching his body in a physical sense and relish in what could have been. He imagined himself relentlessly grabbing at Seishirou and pinning him down to the couch—if he wouldn’t initiate, he _would_ now. Subaru couldn’t stare directly into his eyes and see the swirling emotion, or run his hands through his spiked hair.  
  
But Subaru couldn’t say this wasn’t equally intimate in a different way.  
  
Yes, the love and adoration stirred within him—and Subaru knew he was at the core of it and wouldn’t resist him. Despite any self-preservation he had before, he threw it all out the window and reached for the irresistible bit of flesh that Subaru offered. He found himself taking control of the moment, noticing he could move Subaru’s arm at the same time, putting his energy into controlling his hand. He sped up the process and Subaru’s hand went down the middle of his length and all the way until he reached the base.  
  
Shocked at the sharp movement, Subaru released a soft whine of approval. His lips lazy opened, eyes glazed, body on edge.  
  
His hand guided him. In fact, he didn’t feel like he was in control of his hand, and now he didn’t want to be. Of course this wasn’t the first time he had done this—time and time he had fantasies of him while he had been gone for years and left him to his own lonely devices. Letting him it do was incredibly satisfying. An unsatisfied hunger dwelled within his heart and burst forth from the depths of that uncontrollable need for him.  
  
His hand tingled and circulated with power and combined undeniable lust. Overwhelmed, he panted for more, the heat on his skin radiating into his palm. The whisper of Seishirou’s need for him urged him on, and he didn’t even have to imagine his face anymore. The sound of Seishirou whispering into his ear was husky and sweetly shot through his head like a shooting star on a midnight sky.  
  
He touched the inch of skin under the head and squeezed his balls. Each stroke was faster than the last as the last stride of their journey sizzled in brain and fried the last coherent thoughts in his mind. Was Seishirou reliant on his emotions to feel aroused, and did he know exactly how he made him feel? He hoped so.  
  
Subaru’s eyes screwed shut, eyelashes fluttering, his eyelids covering his eyes so tight he wasn’t sure when he would be able to open them again. On impulse, his legs jerked, one leg slinging over the top of the couch and foot hitting the carpet.  
  
In the pleasure, Seishirou reached higher and deliberately touched the pentagram. The thrill buzzed from the center like electricity and freedom through them.  
  
Nothing turned Subaru on more than the little fact he was supplied maximum pleasure to Seishirou’s doorstep. The knowledge he had power overstimulated him. The pressure coiled up in his groin and ravaged his insides until he finally let himself go to the building orgasm.  
  
The roar of climax hit Subaru full-force. He threw his head back, spasming. His legs rocked and kicked at the cushion on the far edge. Spent, he sagged against the couch. He was more or less boneless from head to toe, overflowing with feeling and happiness. Seishirou’s mind went blank and simply shared in the bliss.  
  
The hum of their souls sang together.  
  


* * *

  
The real questions came later.  
  
For the life of him, though, he couldn’t understand what had connected them together. Shouldn’t Seishirou’s soul have moved on? Isn’t that what it realistically should do, and if it didn’t, what was the fate of the many others he and Seishirou had killed for innumerable contracts?  
  
Seishirou’s hand striking at him replayed in his memories. Under the gray sky, his skin had been darker with the spell that would end everything. The reflection of power had been quick and the blood stark. But he hadn’t wanted that outcome; he had wanted to see his death at the hand of the only person he had ever loved.  
  
It wasn’t until Subaru poured through a handful of his books did he know. He bookmarked the page, mulling over it.  
  
“When I…”  
  
Subaru swallowed. His throat restricted. The similar swirl of emotions whirled up within him. He had to understand the dynamic of it so their bond would never be broken. But the answer, after working his brain to the limit on the possibilities, was so exponentially simple in design he wanted to cry from his airheadness.  
  
“And what did you do, Subaru-kun?” Seishirou asked. Slowly, he was starting to talk to him, even though he didn’t always strike up casual conversation.  
  
“When I killed… you…” He shook his head, gritting the words. “I think it happened. It could have only worked at that moment.”  
  
“What did?”  
  
“Hokuto-chan… was sneaky.”  
  
Seishirou went silent. He didn’t know what that meant. She had given him a triumphant look before death, but he hadn’t thought much of the repercussions. Her final curse had been unavoidable, though, and he scoffed at the necessity of putting him under it. She had made it transparent from the start, so she hadn’t needed secrets. If she had, the point of her goal would have been jeopardized to keep them within each other’s orbit.  
  
But Subaru understood. Hokuto had wished for them to be together so perilously that, in achieving it, it hadn’t just killed Seishirou. That would have defeated the point. It sealed him within him and forced him not to run away.  
  
In the end, he wished he had known the extent of her desire to keep them happy.  
  
“She knew you were a liar and took extreme measures,” Subaru said.  
  
“And that means?” Seishirou asked.  
  
“She wanted us bound no matter what the price. I really am in control now.”  
  
He probed Subaru’s thoughts for clarification, but he blocked him. Huffily, Seishirou shrugged, still annoyed.  
  
Later that night, they had a job that involved a similar topic of conversation. The hunt wasn’t difficult; Subaru waited outside the target’s workplace and followed her down the expanse of street until they reached a secluded area.  
  
Together, they struck the unsuspecting woman in the heart. The corpse fell to the ground with an unceremonious fall.  
  
Subaru couldn’t ask for better advantage than Seishirou being in sync with him.  
  
“You’re quick,” Seishirou observed.  
  
“Not as efficient as you were.”  
  
Seishirou sighed to himself. He hadn’t tried to be perfect. The skill of the trade had come naturally to him in the long run. But he was impressed with the manner in which Subaru brought seriousness to the table and didn’t back down from it.  
  
“If I say so myself,” Seishirou said, the smirk evident in his voice at the tease of a compliment, “you are frightening.”  
  
Subaru smiled. He had his own ideas about that, but he was willing to take any praise from him in stride. “I blame you.”  
  
Their realities fed into each other, and they had plenty to work on for the days ahead. But it was the lesser of evils which could separate them. From now on, their souls were bound together forever.


End file.
